1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a sheet material cooling device provided within a sheet material conveyance step, and a printer including the sheet material cooling device, and more particularly to a sheet material cooling device which cools a sheet material during conveyance of the sheet material, and a printer including the sheet material cooling device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In duplex printing conventionally performed by an industrial printer or the like, a printing sheet is temporarily dried by using an ink drying device (hereinafter referred to as drier) after front surface printing. This drying process is executed to dry ink prior to rear surface printing after the front surface printing is completed. The drier heats and dries the printing sheet at a high temperature (approximately 80° C., for example). In duplex printing, the rear surface printing is performed after the front surface printing. When the temperature of the printing sheet is high at the time of rear surface printing, printing becomes unstable. Accordingly, the printing sheet needs to be cooled to an appropriate temperature for stable printing (approximately 40° C., for example) before the rear surface printing starts.
There is a type of industrial printer which includes a sheet material cooling device. This sheet material cooling device conveys a printing sheet from a front surface printing device for printing on a front surface of the printing sheet, to a rear surface printing device for subsequent printing on a rear surface of the printing sheet. The sheet material cooling device is disposed between the front surface printing device and the rear surface printing device, and includes a plurality of rollers. When the sheet material cooling device cools the printing sheet during conveyance of the printing sheet on the rollers, the temperature of the printing sheet lowers to an appropriate temperature before the start of the rear surface printing. Accordingly, a type of the sheet material cooling device is equipped with cooling units within the rollers (for example, see Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 5-301336).